The humble Frisbee has a story going back more than 100 years, starting at a small bakery situated in the town of Warren, Connecticut. The Baker there, William Russell Frisbie, came up with an original marketing idea back in the 1870’s. His idea was to put the family name in relief on the bottom of the light pie tins in which his company’s home-made pies were sold.

Frisbie’s pie tins were reusable, so the idea was that every time a housewife started to bake a pie in one, she would see the name Frisbie and, so he hoped, think, "How much easier to buy one". As the bakery expanded, these pie tins were widely distributed and sold throughout most of Connecticut.

The idea of using the Frisbie tins for more than baking became popular in the 1940’s when students from Yale began to use the “Frisbies” to throw to each other. Now that sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it?

In 1948 the first Frisbee (as we know them today) was created when a Los Angeles building inspector named Walter Frederick Morrison and his partner Warren Franscioni invented a plastic version of the Frisbee that could fly further and with better accuracy than the original pie tin.

Morrison produced a plastic Frisbee called the Pluto Platter, to cash in on the growing popularity of UFOs with the American public at the time. The Pluto Platter subsequently became the basic design for all Frisbees. The outer third of the Frisbee disc is called the 'Morrison Slope', listed in the patent.

Rich Knerr and AK 'Spud' Melin were the owners of a new toy company called “Wham-O”. Knerr and Melin were also the marketers behind other popular Wham-O toys, the Hula-Hoop, the Super Ball and the Water Wiggle. The pair first saw Morrison's Pluto Platter in late 1955. They liked what they saw and convinced Morrison to sell them the rights to his design.

With a deal signed, Wham-O began production (13th January 1957) of more Pluto Platters. The following year, the original Frisbie Baking Company shut down and coincidentally Fred Morrison was awarded a patent for his flying disc. Morrison has received over one million dollars in royalties for his invention.

The word “Frisbee” is pronounced the same as the word “Frisbie”. Rich Knerr was in search of a catchy new name to help increase sales of the Pluto Platter and, after hearing the story about the original “Frisbie” pie tins, he created the new word, the registered trademark Frisbee®.

Frisbee sales soared due to Wham-O's clever marketing of Frisbee playing as a new sport. In 1964, the first professional model went on sale. Ed Headrick was the inventor at Wham-O who patented Wham-O's designs for the modern Frisbee (U.S. patent 3,359,678). Headrick invented the great aerodynamic qualities of the perfectly curved modern Frisbee.

In 1967, high school students in Maplewood, New Jersey invented Ultimate Frisbee, a recognised sport that is a cross between football, soccer and basketball. Ten years later, a form of Frisbee golf was introduced, complete with professional playing courses and associations.